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What Are Things You've Heard That Made You Facepalm?


michaelsteele3

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Then why are you doing physics? Do another science class that's honors or AP instead if you're so good for it. Hell, if you hate high school science classes so much, then do a college class.

Geez. Why always me?

I go to a small school. We don't have honors classes. And we don't have AP Physics. We only have Physics I. I plan on taking college physics next year, and I figured having a high school physics class would help.

It's never wrong to want to be accurate.

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As I often tell my students, your underwear and religion are extremely important and personal. We all know most of us wear underwear and most of us have some sort of opinion on religion and many of us may actually be practitioners in a religion we deem important. However, just as I do not care what type of underwear you wear, I am also not overly concerned with what religion, if any, you subscribe to. It is between you and your chosen deity, just as your underwear is between your body and your clothes (unless you run around the house with your underwear on your head). :D

I run around my house with my wife's underwear on my head, does that count?

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Geez. Why always me?

I go to a small school. We don't have honors classes. And we don't have AP Physics. We only have Physics I. I plan on taking college physics next year, and I figured having a high school physics class would help.

It's never wrong to want to be accurate.

For most of my high school years, and with my father being career military, we were stationed in West Germany (before the wall came down). Yes, I went to an American high school ran by the Department of Defense - and let me tell you, I am so thankful for what DoDDS had for a high school curriculum. Besides the normal four years of English classes, basic maths and basic sciences, and physical education we ALL had to take, there was also Band, Jazz Band Ensemble, Choir, Calculus II, Physics II, Basic Astronomy, Chemistry II, Trigonometry II, Latin (up to four years worth), German (up to four years worth), Spanish (up to four years worth), and French (up to four years worth). You also had the option of taking classes during the summer, which I did because I LOVED school. During the summer I took basic electronics, advanced electronics (I can fix my own small electrical appliances, thank you! :D) along with academics.

My father retired from the Army after 27 years of service in 1987; we moved back to his hometown, and in January 1988, I transferred to the high school where he graduated. That school was the physical anomaly that Bart Simpson talked about - it both sucked and blowed. No Physics II, No Basic Astronomy, no French above French II, no Spanish above II, no Latin, no German and certainly no vocational classes beyond auto mechanics or farming. So, the last semester of my senior year consisted of band and six study halls - I already had exceeded the requirements for graduation. What really sucked is the narrow mindedness of most of the student body, not understanding that one can live in Germany as a military depended and NOT be a German citizen, would call me a "Kraut" or make other derogatory comments about me. I was often told that I, as a German citizen, had no rights in the United States. Even had an argument with one of the high school zombies teachers who insisted that I could not be an American if I went to German schools... At first, I would argue with them, but after the first six weeks, it just became so much easier to ignore them. So, needless to say, I didn't go to the prom, or any of that other stuff normal folks did their senior year. Instead, I began taking college courses.

About ten years ago, in 2008, for some reason, I had the desire to go to my 20th year high school reunion - and may I add I will never attend another one. One of the girls that I had band with walked up to me and introduced me to her husband as "the Kraut from Germany" Her husband, shocked, looked at me and said, "where was your dad stationed?" Well, after ten minutes of conversation, we discovered that we both had gone to Hanau American High School, and he was a freshman my senior year. He and his wife met in college, so she was unaware he had graduated high school in Germany. She simply had assumed that Hanau was a small town back east, where his parents were from. As she listened to our conversation, all she could say was "Let me get this straight. You're not a German? -- why didn't you say something then?"

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I run around my house with my wife's underwear on my head, does that count?

Wow, a facepalm from the facepalm thread... Somehow, monstah, I can actually imagine you doing that. :D For the sake of the kiddies that read this forum, I will keep all questions about these incidents to myself! :sealed:

Edited by adsii1970
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About 8 years or so ago my Ex-wife and I were sitting on the couch watching TV. A commercial for a metal detector comes on.

"Those commercials are so fake. They always show people finding gold rings and stuff. Gold's not even a metal!"

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About 8 years or so ago my Ex-wife and I were sitting on the couch watching TV. A commercial for a metal detector comes on.

"Those commercials are so fake. They always show people finding gold rings and stuff. Gold's not even a metal!"

Did you have a printer back then?

If you did, you should have printed lots of periodic tables and thrown them at her.

Gold's not a metal, it's a NOBLE GAS

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About 8 years or so ago my Ex-wife and I were sitting on the couch watching TV. A commercial for a metal detector comes on.

"Those commercials are so fake. They always show people finding gold rings and stuff. Gold's not even a metal!"

If it was zinc, she would have been right, in a way(exactly 50% right actually)... But gold... Definitely a metal ! Haha

Here's another one : This time it's not my genome teacher but my chemistry teacher :

[Talking about how hydrogen bonds are important and make water liquid at room temperature, thus being essential to life on Earth, and about the fact that a polar solvant such as water is essential to life]

" And this is why space agencies around the world send probes in all the directions of the solar system to scan for liquid water in interstellar space "

Even brilliant scientists can be heavily mistaken in the large orders of magnitudes that you deal with when talking about space ^^

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Did you have a printer back then?

If you did, you should have printed lots of periodic tables and thrown them at her.

Gold's not a metal, it's a NOBLE GAS

Actually I already had a wallet chart due to an earlier incident. Which I might as well go ahead and describe.

Background: Its about 9pm Novemberish 2004. All attractions employees of Universal Orlando are required to be trained to handle the balloons for the Macy's parade (not the New York one, the mini-ones universal does, though they use most of the same balloons as the big one). All of the balloons were being stored in the four big sound stage structures except a few that were outside for training purposes. One of these was just outside the door where we had just finished a training session and were heading for break.

I walk out the door, and there is a balloon probably 20 feet to my right as I exited, I walked about another 20 feet to my left, leaned up against the side of the structure and lit up a cigarette. Maybe two puffs in this kid comes out of the building, takes two steps out the door, turns his head towards me and starts screaming "OH MY GOD PUT THAT OUT! YOU'RE GOING TO BLOW US ALL UP! THESE BALLOONS ARE FILLED WITH HELIUM WHICH IS REALLY EXPLOSIVE! HAVEN'T YOU EVER HEARD OF THE HINDENBURG? YOU'RE GOING TO DO THAT TO US ALL!"

I pretty much spent the rest of my break trying to explain to this guy the difference between Hydrogen and Helium, and what noble gasses were and stuff. In the end I learned a lesson about arguing with people who have no clue what they are talking about: don't do it.

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I pretty much spent the rest of my break trying to explain to this guy the difference between Hydrogen and Helium, and what noble gasses were and stuff...

And to think that I tried to explain to one of my Scouts (when I was a Scoutmaster) that noble gasses are what you get when you eat a Noble Roman's Tuscano sub with garlic sauce... :D

Actually couldn't resist... I guess working with college freshmen, particularly frat boys, has demented my thinking...

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Found this today on Cracked:

http://www.cnet.com/news/must-have-kitchen-gadget-food-radiation-checker/

Food radiation checker. Made in Japan, preying on the fear of radioactive contamination after Fukushima. Priced at about $1,628, claim to detect radiation ranging from 0.001 to 9.999 microsieverts.

Honestly with that kind of money I rather buy a Geiger counter and be done with it.

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Even brilliant scientists can be heavily mistaken in the large orders of magnitudes that you deal with when talking about space ^^

Scientists are just as knowledgeable as a common person when talking outside of their field. But for some reason people always look up to them as if they know everything.

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Found this today on Cracked:

http://www.cnet.com/news/must-have-kitchen-gadget-food-radiation-checker/

Food radiation checker. Made in Japan, preying on the fear of radioactive contamination after Fukushima. Priced at about $1,628, claim to detect radiation ranging from 0.001 to 9.999 microsieverts.

Honestly with that kind of money I rather buy a Geiger counter and be done with it.

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Scientists are just as knowledgeable as a common person when talking outside of their field. But for some reason people always look up to them as if they know everything.

Yeah, for this price you can have a nice Geiger counter... Actually this thing looks a lot like a Geiger wrapped in a plastic box to me...

About scientists : You are 100% right ! I completely agree that scientists are way too often asked to know everything. (It seems so simple when you know nothing about it ! ). They are specialized in one or a few fields, but can have huge misconceptions on other things ! And i see it everyday with my biology teachers that know nothing about rockets and space in general ^^

Facepalm moment a few minutes ago when i talked to someone who honestly believed the amount of blood cells in 100mL of blood was equal to the amount in the whole body "because the concentration is the same, you always have the same number of cells, concentration doesn't change whatever the amount of fluid"

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Facepalm moment a few minutes ago when i talked to someone who honestly believed the amount of blood cells in 100mL of blood was equal to the amount in the whole body "because the concentration is the same, you always have the same number of cells, concentration doesn't change whatever the amount of fluid"

Are they by any chance subscribe to the idea of homeopathy?

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Are they by any chance subscribe to the idea of homeopathy?

You mean the kind of stuff that contains .1*10^-38 moles/L (virtually not a single molecule of inert/inactive compound in the bottle) ? That also deserves facepalms.

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A typical youtube comment on a space shuttle launch:

Note the curved path of the rocket, describing a semi-cicle; it will soon get to the apogee of it and then redescend towards earth, falling in the ocean, diving nose first. No witnesses around, noone to see the scam...Look at the trajectory, it OBVIOUSLY ain't going into space. It's all a HOAX.

nngh......

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Some people will make up anything to get the gullible to "like and share" stuff, no matter how impossible and without the least semblance of fact checking:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/61004449/KSP/Misc/15days.png

This makes me want to come up with scenarios what would be needed to make this happen. A couple of moons tag teaming each other? A Simpsons style sun blocker? A huge box with a cat that is both dead and alive?

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